Waiting for Venus - A Novel

by Robert Cooper

  Madhu quickly gets into the reason for his visit. ‘A coincidence that Doctor Ra’mad called just when he did, since the super wants to see you, Tom. I’m to take you there. First though, tell me briefly what happened with Professor Düsseldorf.’

  I tell Madhu more or less what happened, leaving out Bernard’s interjections. Madhu draws from my account the salient points for the Prosecution. ‘The driver opened the door, knocked you off balance, apologised and stretched out an arm to help you. Barnaby bit it and he shot Barnaby. A biting dog gets an automatic death sentence.’

  ‘But the gun, Madhu? Isn’t possession of firearms in itself a very serious offence?’

  ‘It is. If possession is illegal. But maybe the driver has authorisation.’

  ‘Why would he?’ I ask, bewildered. ‘He’s obviously Japanese?’

  ‘The f-fact that s-somebody originates from J-Japan – or Tamil Nadu or Ch-China or P-P-Putney for that matter – does n-n-not m-make them any less S-S-Singaporean.’ Madhu speaks with stutter-inducing passion. Nothing unites Singaporeans as much as their differences.

  ‘Very sorry, Madhu. I realise Singapore’s greatness is thanks to its ethnic synergy. I was not to know the driver has authorisation to carry arms.’

  ‘I said m-maybe he does. We’ll check. If he is authorised and makes a complaint, your dog’s in trouble. Now, it’s well after dark and the super is waiting. Can we go?’

  Barnaby is left in the loving care of David and Ra’mad and I leave, as they say, to help the police with their enquiries.

  * * *

  No flashing lights, no sirens, no handcuffs, no police markings on the car. We head towards Changi, a distant suburb known, in 1980, only for the sailing club, a middle-income dormitory estate and its prison. The road, at that time, is unlit and narrow. My stomach rumbles. Madhu says, ‘Don’t worry; you’ll get fed where you’re going.’

  We pull up in front of an unassuming house on the anonymous housing estate. ‘Does the super live here?’ Madhu gives a laugh in reply and leads me through a small neat garden like the small neat gardens of the houses on either side. Inside is exactly what you would expect from the outside. A sitting room dominated by a television, a tank of tropical fish, a large print of horses pulling logs through the snow and various family souvenirs in a well-dusted showcase. If it’s not for the tiled floor and the turn of a ceiling fan, I might be in suburban London.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ the super’s voice rises from the back of an easy chair. I prop myself on the edge of a sofa facing him. ‘Make yourself comfortable, we have plenty of time.’ The super’s at ease in T-shirt and shorts, his bare feet raised on a padded rattan stool, a frosty glass of beer on the arm of his chair. Looking equally at home next to him is K.

  19

  Helping with Enquiries

  THEY ARE WATCHING a football match on TV. K grins broadly as if he has succeeded in playing one of his brilliant practical jokes on me. He wears a clean neckerchief, freshly ironed shirt and looks fully relaxed. ‘Madhu,’ the super says, ‘would you mind getting a glass for our guest. And bring more bottles from the fridge, would you? Oh, and now Doctor Haddock is here, we can eat. Tell the girl to bring in dinner.’ It sounds like grilled Haddock is off the menu.

  The super is in no hurry to begin and for once K holds his tongue. The TV is clicked off as the many courses of a Chinese meal are clattered together, nasi padang style, on the coffee table. Madhu brings the beer and leaves without eating. ‘I’ll drive you back later,’ says the super. ‘You must be wondering what we are all doing here.’

  ‘Yes,’ I answer simply. At the super’s wave of invitation, I pick up chopsticks and begin to eat.

  ‘Do you have any idea why a superintendent is on this case?’

  ‘No. I know in the movies it’s usually an inspector who heads an investigation. Maybe things are different in Singapore.’

  ‘Not so different,’ the super replies. ‘Murder is a status thing even in egalitarian Singapore. If a dozen building workers are axed by a labourer running amok, I would be kept informed. When professors and vice-chancellors are involved – fortunately not often – or when there is a strong political element, I get dusted off for the spotlight. This case has it all. The confidential file on Bernard Fox alone was enough to raise the stakes.’ The super pauses for effect.

  K remains unusually quiet. Is he deferring to the super? I can’t remember K ever deferring to anybody. I follow his lead and do not interrupt. I know the super will tell me all he wants me to know, no more, no less.

  ‘You find yourself at present in what your movies might call a safe house. When we need to accommodate somebody in secret, we simply move them into a vacant house with a cook and a guard. This is such a house: it allows Doctor Woolf to disappear for a time while helping with enquiries. I should make clear that your friend is here voluntarily. I spoke to him before his dinner with Düsseldorf and took that opportunity to invite him to leave his car at the Mandarin and enter our care. The main reason for the pretence at his disappearance is to draw out Düsseldorf and Nagasaki.’

  The super looks across to K, his cue to speak. ‘The super means: leave the axis with nobody to attack but you, ha ha.’

  ‘You have already had trouble with Düsseldorf. Madhu informed me immediately Ra’mad telephoned him. Düsseldorf’s car was stopped soon after it left the university. He had in the car this gun and this letter; both were brought to me here. Do you recognise them?’ The super opens a plastic bag lying among the beer bottles.

  ‘That’s the gun the driver used to shoot Barnaby and the letter is from Bernard to me, the one you read already.’

  The super clicks the TV on again and turns up the volume. The crowd roars and jeers, the umpire blows his whistle. Wong aims the gun at the umpire as he tries to separate two brawling players. He pulls the trigger. Bang. The brawl continues. The screen does not shatter.

  ‘Imagine your statement in open court and the fun the Defence would have with it,’ the super replies as he clicks off the set. ‘The gun taken from the car only fires caps. It’s a World War II Luger, but a replica, a toy if you like, it makes a decent bang but cannot fire a bullet. The driver used the gun to frighten your dog – he says he had been bitten when trying to help you up. My men have so far failed to discover any bullet near where the incident occurred, but they did find a scrap of wood with a rusty nail through it in the water where the dog fell. I explain this not to accuse you of lying but to demonstrate that Von Führer Düsseldorf is a very wily bird. His explanation for the letter is that you were holding it when you fell against the open door of the car and it dropped inside. When Düsseldorf tried to return it to you, you abused him and he drove off.’

  ‘I can see how it would look in court,’ I concede.

  ‘Why did you not show me the PS along with the rest of the letter? And what does the PS mean? It must make sense to you. Let me refresh your memory.’ The super reads slowly from the last page of Bernard’s letter. ‘PS. In the forest of virginity, you may dig out a greater treasure than hidden by any pirate. To find it, follow the way of a lonely orchid. Branch left, continue to the dog stone and uncover the ground.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ I say. ‘I made it up and forged Bernard’s handwriting. There was no PS on the letter. I added it only because I wanted something to show if they came looking for war loot. I would have shown them the letter and said I don’t know where the treasure is – which is true. I didn’t expect the letter to be stolen from my flat and I did not deceive you. I never showed you a PS because there wasn’t one.’

  ‘Okay, so you wrote this PS. We can check the handwriting. Whether or not you know where the so-called war loot is, that’s one thing. But how do you know there is any such thing?’

  I hesitate.

  ‘The super’s got you there, Haddock,’ K intervenes. ‘I certainly knew nothing about any treasure until Herr Umlaut tried to bribe me with a share of it in exchange for persuading you to reveal
its location. The deal, he said was to be 50% for us, you and me that is, and 50% for him and his boyfriend. In exchange, he would deal with the problems involved in moving the whatever, converting it into US dollars and overcoming any problems with Li Fang, who was in some weird way the guardian of the loot and Bernard’s keeper. I, of course, wanted nothing to do with the proposition. Although I might have done – if I had not already found the treasure!’

  ‘You found the treasure?’

  ‘I say, Haddock, don’t gape like that; you’ll trip over your bottom lip. Somebody had to find the stuff. Why not me? I, of course, handed it over to the police.’

  ‘When my men picked you up with it!’ The super added.

  ‘I only carried it around for the sake of feeling extraordinarily rich for a time. I always intended to hand it in. After all, it wasn’t mine. Although you have mentioned, Superintendent, that some of it might find its way back to me in terms of an official reward. I’ll explain it all to you, Haddock. But first I believe you should answer Superintendent Wong’s question. How come you know about the loot?’

  ‘Agnes told me. She thought I already knew about it and where it is and warned me Von Düsseldorf might try to discover its whereabouts and will be angry if I deny knowledge of its existence. She said you had phoned her from the Mandarin and told her to warn me.’

  ‘That was four day ago, Haddock.’

  ‘Yes, she waited until today to tell me – seems she expected you to call again and whisk her off to paradise. I left Bernard’s letter in my drawer so I’d have something to show Düsseldorf if he got violent. But Düsseldorf stole the letter rather than my giving it to him. That’s perhaps why he seems not to have questioned whether or not it was written by Bernard.’

  The super listens intensely. ‘When did he steal the letter?’

  ‘Today. David saw him leaving my flat.’

  ‘When you were with Agnes? I presume she made the great revelation after we had met in Chin’s office?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, the timeline is: Agnes reveals all, Barnaby gets shot, Madhu brings you here. Between which of those events did you manage to write a convincingly fake PS to Fox’s letter to you?’ The super punctures my timeline.

  ‘Er, none of them. I wrote it before.’

  ‘Before Agnes told you about the treasure and warned you about Von Düsseldorf?’

  ‘Yes.’ Wong and K both look at me, waiting. ‘Alright, I mixed timing. She told me the day after K called her and told her to warn me – she phoned me in the department and told me to beware of Düsseldorf, because he thinks I’ve got a map to the treasure he wants. I thought it a silly invention of K’s – one of his games – so I went along with it. Didn’t draw a map – that really would have been a bit too schoolboy-ish – but made up a meaningless riddle. She gave me the full story only today.’

  ‘So, you were half expecting to be called on by the Gestapo, but never thought to let me know or even to lock your door.’

  ‘That’s right, Superintendent. It was Agnes passing on a message from K – I thought he’d put her up to it – one of his elaborate practical jokes. When I faked the PS, I wasn’t really expecting trouble from Von Düsseldorf, I thought I’d show the letter, with the PS to K and string him along in his joke.’

  ‘The games children play!’ The super sounds exasperated. ‘The important thing now is that Düsseldorf thinks he has a real clue to the war loot’s location. Tell me, when you wrote it, did the PS come to you out of thin air or were the clues intended to lead somewhere – even if only in your imagination? That might be important in getting our hands on Düsseldorf. At this time, we have a whopping great file on the man and can find nothing he has done against the law.’

  ‘Then why are you so interested in him, Superintendent?’ I ask.

  ‘Because he’s always around when something nasty happens: Chin Jin-Hui’s wartime protection racket, Jin-Hui’s death and the death of Bernard Fox are some of the things you know about. There are others you don’t know about. In return for his help to the British after the Japanese surrender in Singapore, Düsseldorf saved one Japanese who would otherwise have found himself at the end of a rope. One you have already met. He was known then as Takemura, now Nagasaki. He was Kempeitai and worked with Jin-Hui during the war, torturing and hanging whoever Jin-Hui fingered as anti-Japanese. All of the files on Nagasaki held by the British were destroyed to please Von Düsseldorf, his boyfriend during the war. Nagasaki’s the one who denies having shot your dog.’

  ‘And you can’t lay anything on them?’ I ask bluntly.

  ‘Officially, Von Führer Düsseldorf performed a diplomatic function during the war and later assisted Singapore and Malaysia to defeat communist insurgency during the Emergency. Had he not been German and ex-Nazi, he might have been decorated along with Bernard Fox, with an OBE. Nagasaki remained in Singapore after the war, helped the British and received a pardon from the colonial authorities. His continued residence qualified him for citizenship on Singapore’s Independence – just like Professor Fox. He owns a security firm which protects the property of many well-off people in Singapore. They are both wealthy men. Nagasaki is not the German’s chauffeur; he just drives the car. Neither of them needs work. They do so as a hobby. In the same way they search for the wartime loot. Both are squeaky clean.’

  ‘Superintendent, I will of course do anything I can to help, although I can’t think what.’

  ‘From what the super tells me,’ K interrupts, ‘you can be a great help. You will be a decoy. Don’t forget, they don’t know I have already found the treasure – and don’t tell them that, even if they twist your goolies.’

  ‘But why not simply make public that the treasure has been recovered? Surely that would stop their chasing around looking for it.’

  ‘You’re right,’ says the super. ‘That’s why we do not tell anybody. There is a more important issue than recovery of war loot: justice for those thousands of Singaporeans who were executed with the involvement of Nagasaki. The British pardoned him but such pardons are not binding on today’s Singapore. We need to catch him actually doing something now, not thirty-five years ago. Once detained, we’ll get the full story.’

  I drink my beer. ‘Before I agree to act as a decoy in whatever plan you have in mind, I want to know how you, K, just happened upon the loot and what you are doing in a suburban house watching telly.’

  My big question remains unasked. How could K have handed in the treasure when only Li Fang and I know where it is?

  20

  They Stole the Guard Dog

  ‘THEY CAME IN through the open front door when Barnaby was still sedated on your bed under the watch of Ra’mad.’ David’s account, told to me later, of what is happening back at the flat as I drink beer in a distant Changi suburb. It is David’s account, not mine – David speaking, not me. I believe half of it.

  * * *

  Old VD tells Ra’mad, ‘Doctor Haddock has been detained at the police station, ve vish to assist him by bringing his dog to a specialist for more expert examination. Ve know, Doctor Ra’mad, that in the past you have seen many unfortunate cases of people dying unnecessarily because correct care vas not available. I need only mention the case of Harry Chin’s father, Jin-Hui, a good friend of mine. You are vell avare that Jin-Hui died unnecessarily aren’t you, Ra’mad?’

  ‘Dogs are not the same as people,’ Ra’mad says.

  ‘I vould agree,’ says the German. ‘But some sentimental Englishmen value dogs above human life. This seems to be the case with our Doctor Haddock. Ve vould hate anything to happen to his precious Barnaby. The unfortunate accident earlier this evening led to Mr Nagasaki here being bitten and to Barnaby hurting herself when she fell. Mr Nagasaki is villing to forego his right to have the animal gassed. Far from thoughts of revenge, Mr Nagasaki is here to help the dog’s recovery. He does so in the spirit of kindness. The dog vill be better cared for at an animal clinic. Do you agree, Ra’mad?’

&nbs
p; Ra’mad agrees too damn quick. He says he’ll immediately go upstairs and telephone you at the police station so you know your dog’s in good hands, then he scarpers. This left me alone with the buggers.

  ‘I think,’ I tell them, ‘we should wait until Doctor Haddock answers. If he says take Barnaby, then fine.’

  ‘Dat’s vhat you think,’ VD says. ‘I think differently. So does Mr Nagasaki and so does Doctor Ra’mad. That’s three to one. Now please step aside Mr Bent, unless you vish to assist Mr Nagasaki in muzzling the dog and carrying it to the car.’

  I react instinctively and cover Barnaby with my body. This noble act leaves my backside wriggling around in the air and, I suppose, tempting the androgynously inclined. Next thing I know, the Führer pulls me Bermudas down, digs his nails into my backside, lifts me bodily and dumps me face down on the bed beside Barns. Barnaby’s awake enough to lick my face as I’m about to be buggered. Nagasaki fastens a muzzle over Barnaby’s head and forces her to watch. The fiend.

  Then, as they say, the world explodes. I’ve never been raped before, and gang-raped at that, still you hetero-types probably wouldn’t be interested in the details, would you. Enough to say that between the German and the Jap there’s really no contest, the Jap wins Hans-down. Von Scheisskopf’s got the dimensions, but the Nip keeps it going. I really can’t complain. It’s the first time I’ve had a nip in the bud. Exhausting it was. I don’t know how long I lay there or when they took off with Barns. I only come round when I hear Venus. She finds me with my Bermudas still down and sounds ever so concerned.

  ‘David, what’s happened?’ Says your much-distressed lady.

  ‘I was raped by the evil German Baron and his sadistic Samurai sidekick,’ I reply. ‘And Barnaby has been stolen.’

  ‘That’s terrible, we must call the police immediately,’ says your Venus.

  ‘Ah, but I have my reputation to think about,’ I answer her. ‘If the whole world knows I’ve been raped, nobody will marry me.’